ok..

quite tired after 1 tut from 9am to 10am, 1 lec from 11pm to 12pm, then 4 hours straight of project work with only half an hour of lunch break...



decided to blog the details of my trip down to naval diving unit (NDU) last wed..



woke up at 6... left my house at 630...

took 187 and reached woodlands at 7.. so early sia..

then took train one stop down to admiralty.. 710...

din expect such a quick ride down...



730.. chuan kai came.. he was late..

but he told me the 3-tonner, that big army truck, won't leave till 8am.. -_-

queued and registered my attendance..

there were 2 3-tonner and i took the 2nd one.. 20 of us in civilian clothes, some dyed and long hair.. plus the crew cut tanned corporal who's in charge of bringing us around..



first thing we had to take x-ray (again).. did it at cmpb liao still need to take again..

then pull ups.. don't think poly guys can be any fit lo..i did 4.. fitness dropped man.. in secondary school use to do 7 standard ones.. if non standard can go up to 15.. lol...



after pull ups... went to the lecture room and did pysco test...

4 sheets of optical answer sheet...

i have nv shaded so many circles at one go in my entire life...

test on iq, personality, eq... etc..

i overheard some of the guys taking the test with me saying that even buy toto 4D also never shade so many... haha



after the test we had lunch at the cookhouse..

it was quite awkward.. 3/4 of the place is filled with crew cut guys...

either a grey tee shirt with the prints "Navy" or a blue tee shirt with the print "Naval Diving Unit"...

so many pairs of eyes looking at us..

naval diver's shorts are really sexy i tell you... i have never seen shorts with such high slits... O_O

we cleared up and proceed to medical centre for medical test...



took blood...

then me and 2 other guys took ECG... cmpb somehow missed my records so i had to retake..

the guy who took my ECG looked at my build (i had to take off my shirt and lie down for the ECG equipment to be clamped all over my body)

"hey man.. u look like a diver..so do you want to come in?"

i said "i'm alright with anything, just go with wherever i'm posted to"

he said "hmm.. good attitude.. alright la.. it's a good time to get some tan and lose these fats" pointing to my slightly flabby waist...ok.. just sit back and relax"

after 2 minutes.. the machine recorded all the readins and i can hear the dot matrix printer printing away...

he took one look at the ecg readings and said "here u go.. everything's alright.. seems like i'll most likely see you here soon"



yep. took the body fats test (that funny meter which you just hold and it will give the reading)

then test my ear... the guy in charge of the ear counter plug this thing in my ear and i can hear this "eeeeeeeee" sound... it's used to check my ear drum vibration i think..

then to this counter where i had to take a deep breath and exhale fast and hard and hold the breath... hey it's not easy man.. the guy was swearing away saying how stressed it is having to teach 60 guys per day how to exhale...

then the hearing test... had this earphones over my head and have to press the button whenever i hear something...

i was quite worried abt this as i know i play drums and listen to quite alot of music.. so i hoped that my hearing is not affected..

readings came out.. i cant understand but since the tester didn't say anything.. i suppose should be alright la.. haha



after medical test.. we went to the naval and hyberbaric centre...

the 10 of us who finished the medical earlier sat together in this container and the pressure is sucked out or compressed or whatever...

it's to emulate a 10m dive.. so the pressure down is equivalent to underwater diving...

we had pinch our nose,close our mouths and blow hard to clear the air..

for me.. it hurts a little but when i ask the tester.. he said it's normal.. just have to continuously clear my ears..

we slowly "descended"..

at 2.5m...2 of the guys began perspiring profusely.. one said that his right ear hurts badly while the other said breathing difficulty... the pressure was brought up to 2m and they were led out..

then the "dive" continued all the way till 10m..

at 10m it was beginning to become quite hot...

after that we were slowly taken back up... we were told to keep our limbs straight and not pop our ears...

as the pressure was slowly restored... i can feel my ears popping by themselves.. it's abit itchy.. haha

the whole chamber became misty with water vapour and it became more cooling...

once out of the chamber, we were given this slip of paper telling us to avoid strenous activities for the next few days..

the 2 guys who were excorted out earlier were taken for further medical tests... blood sugar test and stuff like that... so even if want to "fake".. it's also quite hard.. because they can test it all out..



after the pressure test.. we were brought to swim breast stroke for 10m in a 1m deep pool...

dinner after that and then interview with one of the officers...

the corporal told us not to stay inside too long (as we had to wait for everyone to complete in order to go home).. if anything to ask about diver.. just ask him (the corporal)

soon it was my turn..

it's this uncle around 30 years old.. gold chain around his neck.. bikini babes pics underneath his desk glass..

first thing he ask "so.. want to be diver anot?"

i told him my fitness not good now and he asked about my 2.4

he looked thru my interview paper .. marked a tick which can be either high, average, neutral, no or low recommendation.. well.. of cos i din get to see...

then he put the paper aside and taught me how to run... tell me to jog for 20 mins blah blah...

within 3 minutes.. i was out of the room and back to where everyone was gathered..

waited for everyone to finished and we left... 7pm plus...

the corporal was quite happy as we finished earlier than the batch which was here the day before, which ended at 10pm..

we took the 3-tonner back to admiralty and i reached home at 815...



yep.. so that's about it about my trip down to NDU

won't know whether i will get posted there or not.. as this is just a "test" sort of thing and my batch was the 2nd last batch to be accessed for this year...

"shepherd of my soul" was ringing thru my head that whole day..

i will just leave it all to God...

believing that He has the best plans for me...

just commit it in prayer and adopt a positive attitude to wherever i may be.. =)